CHAPTER XXVII.
THE STORM CONTINUES.—AT WORK.—AMONG THE HUMMOCKS.—DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRACK.—THE SNOW-DRIFTS.—SLOW PROGRESS.—THE SMITH SOUND ICE.—FORMATION OF THE HUMMOCKS.—THE OLD ICE-FIELDS GROWTH OF ICE-FIELDS.—THICKNESS OF ICE.—THE PROSPECT.
THE STORM CONTINUES.—AT WORK.—AMONG THE HUMMOCKS.—DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRACK.—THE SNOW-DRIFTS.—SLOW PROGRESS.—THE SMITH SOUND ICE.—FORMATION OF THE HUMMOCKS.—THE OLD ICE-FIELDS GROWTH OF ICE-FIELDS.—THICKNESS OF ICE.—THE PROSPECT.
I will not lay so heavy a tax upon the reader's patience as to ask him to follow the pages of my diary through the next three weeks. Diaries are of necessity so much taken up with matters that are purely personal and contain so much of endless repetition, so many events that are of daily recurrence, that it is impossible in the very nature of things that they can have much interest for anybody but the writers of them. Suffice it, therefore, to say that the storm continued with unabated violence during the day succeeding that which closed the last chapter, and it did not fairly subside until the end of the tenth day. Meanwhile, however, we were busily occupied. The storm did not keep us housed.
DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRACK.
Our first duty was to bring up the stores left at Cape Hatherton. This accomplished, we broke up our camp and set out to cross the Sound with a moderate load, the men dragging the large sledge, while the dogs were attached as before. The wind had, fortunately, hauled more to the south, and, coming nearly on our backs, we found little inconvenience from this source. But difficulties of another kind soon gave us warning of the serious nature of thetask which we had undertaken. By winding to the right and left, and by occasionally retracing our steps when we had selected an impracticable route, we managed to get over the first few miles without much embarrassment, but farther on the track was rough past description. I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous accumulation of rocks closely packed together and piled up over a vast plain in great heaps and endless ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of level surface and requiring the traveler to pick the best footing he can over the inequalities,—sometimes mounting unavoidable obstructions to an elevation of ten, and again more than a hundred feet above the general level.
SLOW PROGRESS.
The interstices between these closely accumulated ice masses are filled up, to some extent, with drifted snow. The reader will readily imagine the rest. He will see the sledges winding through the tangled wilderness of broken ice-tables, the men and dogs pulling and pushing up their respective loads, as Napoleon's soldiers may be supposed to have done when drawing their artillery through the steep and rugged passes of the Alps. He will see them clambering over the very summit of lofty ridges, through which there is no opening, and again descending on the other side, the sledge often plunging over a precipice, sometimes capsizing, and frequently breaking. Again he will see the party, baffled in their attempt to cross or find a pass, breaking a track with shovel and handspike; or, again, unable even with these appliances to accomplish their end, they retreat to seek a better track; and they may be lucky enough to find a sort of gap or gateway, upon the winding and uneven surface of which they will make a mile or sowith comparative ease. The snow-drifts are sometimes a help and sometimes a hindrance. Their surface is uniformly hard, but not always firm to the foot. The crust frequently gives way, and in a most tiresome and provoking manner. It will not quite bear the weight, and the foot sinks at the very moment when the other is lifted. But, worse than this, the chasms between the hummocks are frequently bridged over with snow in such a manner as to leave a considerable space at the bottom quite unfilled; and at the very moment when all looks promising, down sinks one man to his middle, another to the neck, another is buried out of sight, the sledge gives way, and to extricate the whole from this unhappy predicament is probably the labor of hours; especially, as often happens, if the sledge must be unloaded; and this latter is, from many causes, an event of constant occurrence. Not unfrequently it is necessary to carry the cargo in two or three loads. The sledges are coming and going continually, and the day is one endless pull and haul. The nautical cry of the sailors, intended to inspire unison of action, mingles with the loud and not always amiable commands of Jensen and Knorr, each urging on his fatigued and toil-worn dogs.
It would be difficult to imagine any kind of labor more disheartening, or which would sooner sap the energies of both men and animals. The strength gave way gradually; and when, as often happened, after a long and hard day's work, we could look back from an eminence and almost fire a rifle-ball into our last snow-hut, it was truly discouraging.
I need hardly say that I soon gave up all thought of trying to get the boat across the Sound. A hundredmen could not have accomplished the task. My only purpose now was to get to the coast of Grinnell Land with as large a stock of provisions as possible, and to retain the men as long as they could be of use; but it soon became a question whether the men themselves could carry over their own provisions independent of the surplus which I should require in order that the severe labor should result to advantage. In spite, however, of every thing the men kept steadfastly to their duty, through sunshine and through storm, through cold, and danger, and fatigue.
SMITH SOUND.
The cause of this extraordinary condition of the ice will need but little explanation in addition to that which has been given in the preceding chapter. The reader will have no difficulty in comprehending the cause by an examination of the Smith Sound map. He will observe that the Sound is, in effect, an extensive sea, with an axis running almost east and west, and having a length of about one hundred and sixty miles and a width of eighty. The name "Sound," by which it is known, was first given to it by its discoverer, brave old William Baffin, two hundred and fifty odd years ago. The entrance from Cape Alexander to Cape Isabella is but thirty miles over, and by referring to the map it will be seen that this gateway rapidly expands into the sea to which I have invited attention,—a sea almost as large as the Caspian or Baltic, measured from the terminus of Baffin Bay to where Kennedy Channel narrows the waters before they expand into the great Polar Basin. This extensive sea should bear the name of the leader of the expedition which first defined its boundaries—I mean, of course, Dr. Kane.
Now into this sea the current sets from the PolarBasin through the broader gateway above mentioned, known as Kennedy Channel; and the ice, escaping but slowly through the narrow Sound into Baffin Bay, has accumulated within the sea from century to century. The summer dismembers it to some extent and breaks it up into fragments of varying size, which are pressing together, wearing and grinding continually, and crowding down upon each other and upon the Greenland coast, thus producing the result which we have seen.
DIMENSIONS OF AN ICE FIELD.
In order fully to appreciate the power and magnitude of this ice-movement, it must be borne in mind that a very large proportion of the ice is of very ancient formation,—old floes or ice-fields of immense thickness and miles in extent, as well as of icebergs discharged from Humboldt Glacier. These vast masses, tearing along with the current in the early winter through the sea as it is closing up and new ice is making rapidly, are as irresistible as a tornado among the autumn leaves. As an illustration, I will give the dimensions of an old field measured by me while crossing the Sound. Its average height was twenty feet above the sea level, and about six by four miles in extent of surface, which was very uneven, rising into rounded hillocks as much as eighty feet in height, and sinking into deep and tortuous valleys.
To cross such a floe with our sledges was almost as difficult as crossing the hummocks themselves; for, in addition to its uneven surface, like that of a very rough and broken country, it was covered with crusted snow through which the sledge-runners cut continually, and which broke down under the foot. I estimated its solid contents, in round numbers, at6,000,000,000 of tons, its depth being about one hundred and sixty feet. Around its border was thrown up on all sides a sort of mountain chain of last year's ice, the loftiest pinnacle of which was one hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea. This ice-hill, as it might well be called, was made up of blocks of ice of every shape and of various sizes, piled one upon the other in the greatest confusion. Numerous forms equally rugged, though not so lofty, rose from the same ridge, and from every part of this desolate area; and if a thousand Lisbons were crowded together and tumbled to pieces by the shock of an earthquake, the scene could hardly be more rugged, nor to cross the ruins a severer task.
ORIGIN OF A FLOE.
The origin of such a floe dates back to a very remote period. That it was cradled in some deep recess of the land, and there remained until it had grown to such a thickness that no summer's sun or water's washing could wholly obliterate it before the winter cold came again, is most probable. After this it grows as the glacier grows, from above, and is, like the glacier, wholly composed of fresh ice,—that is, of frozen snow. It will be thus seen that the accumulation of ice upon the mountain tops is not different from the accumulation which takes place upon these floating fields, and each recurring year marks an addition to their depth. Vast as they are to the sight, and dwarfs as they are compared with the inlandmer de glace, yet they are, in all that concerns their growth, truly glaciers—pigmy floating glaciers. That they can only grow to such great depth in this manner will be at once apparent, when it is borne in mind that ice soon reaches a maximum thickness by direct freezing, and that its growth is arrested by a natural law.
AVERAGE THICKNESS OF THE ICE.
This thickness is of course dependent upon the temperature of the locality; but the ice is itself the sea's protection. The cold air cannot soak away the warmth of the water through more than a certain thickness of ice, and to that thickness there comes a limit long before the winter has reached its end. The depth of ice formed on the first night is greater than on the second; the second greater than the third; the third greater than the fourth; and so on as the increase approaches nothing. The thickness of ice formed at Port Foulke was nine feet; and, although the coldest weather came in March, yet its depth was not increased more than two inches after the middle of February. In situations of greater cold, and where the current has less influence than at Port Foulke, the depth of the table will of course become greater. I have never seen an ice-table formed by direct freezing that exceeded eighteen feet. But for this all-wise provision of the Deity, the Arctic waters would, ages ago, have been solid seas of ice to their profoundest depths.
The reader will, I trust, bear patiently with this long digression; but I thought it necessary, in order that he might have a clear understanding as well of our situation as of the character of these Arctic seas; in which I shall hope that I have inspired some interest. As for ourselves, we were struggling along through this apparently impassable labyrinth, striving to reach the coast which now began to loom up boldly before us, and thence stretching away into the unknown North, there receives the lashings of the Polar Sea.
SLOW PROGRESS.
To come back to the narrative which we abandoned so suddenly. The 24th of April found us on the marginof the very floe which I have been describing, weary, worn, and much dispirited. Since we broke camp at Cairn Point, we had made in a direct line from that place not over thirty miles. The number of miles actually traveled could not be easily estimated; but it was scarcely less than five times that distance, counting all our various twistings and turnings and goings and comings upon our track. But I propose again to let my diary speak for itself; and, as on a former occasion, when the evil genius of that unhappy manuscript led it into type, we will resort to a new chapter.
Polar Bear